Against the backdrop of an increased focus on health and safety in all commercial disciplines, Bureau Veritas and Sky-Futures have joined forces in a pioneering new partnership designed to take inspection strategy to, quite literally, a whole new level.

Drawing on Bureau Veritas’ vast repertoire as a world-leading inspection company and Sky-Futures’ cutting-edge, drone-based approach to industrial inspection, the new partnership offers customers with a blended inspection capability combining drones and experienced inspectors.

This new approach, which is now available in the UK and Europe, can drastically aid quality control, reducing the time taken on inspections by allowing hard to access areas to be inspected safely, quickly and cost effectively. The end product is a total inspection solution that delivers a complete overview of a building’s infrastructure whilst meeting all relevant regulatory requirements.

Already proving a resounding success, the partnership recently came as a big benefit to a multinational customer operating a large manufacturing site in the UK whereby the key areas for inspection included the manufacturing line and the roof. While traditionally this would have involved the slow and costly process of setting up scaffolding, using drones meant the roof could be examined quickly and hassle-free whilst the inspections were taking place inside.

The result was that an inspection that would have typically taken many days and required production to shut down took less than one day of work and was completed in normal running conditions – meaning significantly reduced time and cost for the happy customer.

Chris Blackford, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at Sky-Futures, comments: “The adoption of drone technology and data analysis software by companies like Bureau Veritas is driving a safer, more efficient and more valuable inspection capability. Combining hand-held and drone based data collection presented through a 3D world, the partnership provides a true one-stop shop for businesses seeking to enter into this new age of inspection.”

Kyle Veitch, Technical, Quality & Risk Director for North West Europe at Bureau Veritas, adds: “This really is a game-changer for the inspection industry. Inherently, industrial and commercial production and manufacturing sites are vast and demanding environments, which can make the inspection task a complex and expensive one – that is until now.

“Drawing on both of our company’s core strengths, ours as a global leader in safety, and Sky-Futures’ as an innovator in drone technology-based inspection, we are able to offer customers with the most robust, efficient and cost-effective approach to inspection on the market. The response to the partnership has already been fantastic and we look forward to working with many more customers in this new approach in the months to come.”